Spatially, edge cities primarily contain mid-rise office towers (along with some skyscrapers) surrounded by large above-ground parking lots and meticulously manicured lawns, almost reminiscent of Le Corbusier's designs.[10] Rather than having a traditional street grid, their road networks are hierarchical, consisting of winding tree-lined avenues (often without sidewalks) that lead to large arterials or highway ramps. However, edge cities have a job density similar to that of the secondary downtowns of cities such as Newark "Newark (New Jersey)") or Pasadena "Pasadena (California)"); In fact, Garreau wrote that the rise of edge cities demonstrates that "density is back."[11]​.

Garreau expone cómo se desarrollaron las edge cities en el contexto estadounidense. A partir de la década de 1950, las empresas tenían incentivos para abrir sucursales en los suburbios y, en muchos casos, abandonar completamente los downtowns tradicionales, debido al creciente uso del automóvil y al traslado de las clases medias y altas a los suburbios, lo que a su vez produjo frustración con la congesión del tráfico y la escasez de aparcamiento en los downtowns. El aumento de los valores del suelo en los downtown céntricos y el desarrollo de las telecomunicaciones también facilitaron esta tendencia.[12]​.

Aunque existen algunos ejemplos tempranos en la década de 1920, no fue hasta que en la década de 1950 se generalizó el uso del automóvil, tras cuatro décadas de crecimiento intenso y constante, cuando resultó posible que aparecieran edge cities a gran escala. Mientras prácticamente todos los distritos financieros o downtowns secundarios estadounidenses que se desarrollaron pensando en el transporte no motorizado o en el tranvía tienen una red viaria amigable para los peatones con calles relativamente estrechas, la mayoría de edge cities, en cambio, tienen una red viaria jerárquica basada en arterias urbanas hostiles para los peatones, lo que hace que sea difícil llegar a ellas y desplazarse a pie o en transporte público dentro de ellas.[12]​ No obstante, en algunos casos se ha añadido transporte público en décadas posteriores, como es el caso de la línea plateada "Línea Plata (Metro de Washington)") del Metro de Washington, que conecta el centro de Washington D. C. con las edge cities de Arlington y Tysons, o el de las edge cities planificadas por el Gobierno de Canary Wharf en Londres y La Défense en París, que incluyeron transporte público desde su concepción.[13]​.

La primera edge city fue el New Center de Detroit, construido en la década de 1920 unos cinco kilómetros al norte del centro de la ciudad como un nuevo downtown para Detroit.[14]​ El New Center y la sección conocida como Miracle Mile del Wilshire Boulevard de Los Ángeles están considerados como las primeras formas urbanas orientadas al automóvil.[15]​ Sin embargo, las dos fueron construidas con unos objetivos radicalmente diferentes: el New Center como un parque empresarial y la Miracle Mile como una avenida comercial. El ejemplo clásico de edge city que proporciona Garreau es el centro de las tecnologías de la información Tysons, al oeste de Washington D. C.[16]​.

Outside the United States

Garreau shows how edge cities have also developed in other countries, specifically citing Canada, Mexico, Australia and cities such as Paris, London, Karachi, Jakarta and Tianjin. In the cases of London and Paris, he observes that these edge cities were developed with public planning and integrated public transportation.[13]​.

Mobility

Some edge cities planned next to planned highway interchanges have had serious traffic problems if any of these highways are not built. In particular, Century City "Century City (Los Angeles)," a pioneering 1960s edge city built on a former 20th Century Fox location studio in West Los Angeles, was planned along with a long-term project for access via an urban rail system and the Beverly Hills Expressway. However, neither of these two projects came to fruition, causing massive traffic congestion on the streets connecting Century City to the existing highways, two miles away. More than half a century later, the expansion of the Los Angeles Metro's D Line will finally provide rail access, and the Century City/Constellation station is scheduled to open in 2025.

Sustainability

In 2003, Lang and LeFurgy argued that edge cities may prove to be just a phenomenon of the century due to their limitations. First, residents of the low-density residential areas surrounding them often fiercely resist their outward expansion (as has happened in Tysons and Century City "Century City (Los Angeles)"). On the other hand, as their internal street networks are severely limited in capacity, their densification is more difficult than in traditional financial districts and secondary downtowns. As a consequence, they considered that the construction of medium and high density housing on the outskirts of edge cities was "between difficult and impossible." Since most are built to the scale of the automobile, they maintained that "public transportation usually cannot serve them well." They considered that access and circulation on foot within an edge city was impractical, if not impossible, even if the homes were close by. For this reason, they considered the revitalization of edge cities as "the main urban renewal project of the century."[17]​.

Densification

Currently, many edge cities have plans for densification, often around a walkable downtown-style core and with improved accessibility by public transport and bicycle, in addition to the construction of denser housing in urban-style neighborhoods. For example, in Tysons, in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, the goal is for the city to become the central hub of Fairfax County.[18] To this end, "eight districts have been demarcated, four of which are centered around the new subway stations."[18] Plans continue to be developed to improve transportation and accessibility in the area. "The plan's objectives are for 75% of developments to be within half a mile of a metro station, in an urban center with 200,000 jobs and 100,000 residents."[18]​.

Outside North America

Despite the lessons from the American experience, in rapidly developing countries like China, India and the United Arab Emirates, edge cities are rapidly emerging as a new urban form as car ownership soars and marginal land is cleared for development. For example, on the outskirts of Bangalore, numerous mid-rise glass office towers are being built, surrounded by lush gardens and large parking lots where many foreign companies have set up shop. Dubai "Dubai (city)") provides another example.

Relationship with the metropolitan area

The emergence of edge cities has not been without consequences for the metropolitan areas they surround. The edge cities appear due to the decentralization of the population from the center of large cities, which has occurred since the 1960s. Socioeconomic changes in metropolitan areas have been attributed to their appearance and growth, such as the increase in land prices in times of wage stagnation, the location of industrial zones and the competition for work between the edge cities and the more central areas. There has been a significant debate among economists about whether "jobs follow people or people follow jobs,"[19] but in the context of the edge city phenomenon, workers have been attracted from financial districts in favor of the edge city economy. It has been shown that the promoters of edge cities strategically plan their expansion to move workers away from the densest cities and maximize profits from the economic and commercial activities of these areas.[20]​.

Edge cities contribute to urban development by creating new jobs by attracting workers from the metropolitan areas that surround them. As a consequence of the rise of edge cities, more shopping centers, hotels, apartments and office buildings have been built. Currently, there are more edge cities than traditional downtowns of the same size. Garreau states that one reason for the rise of edge cities is that "today, we have moved our means of creating wealth, the essence of urbanism - our jobs - to where most of us have lived and shopped for two generations."[4]​ Compared to urban centers, edge cities offer companies many advantages: cheaper land, security, efficient land communications, advanced technological facilities and a high quality of life for their workers and managers.[2]​.

Impact on the economy and industry

This concept has shown the impact that the national economy has on the edge city and its surroundings. Through Garreau, the term "edge city" has provided insight into the importance of corporate actors to the strength of urban and regional economies. Garreau observes that edge cities have a tendency to have a large service-oriented industry linked to the national economy. The edge city offers supplies to its surroundings in the form of commercial facilities and consumer services.[22]​ Progressively, as its population increases, different services begin to move to the edge city. Corporate offices occupy space in edge cities and provide connections to external locations if decisions are made from those locations.[23]​ Not only are there edge cities based on business, services and transportation, but innovation-driven edge cities generate additional metropolitan links.[24]​ Edge cities can create significant growth in retail, leisure and consumer service facilities, which in turn leads to an increase in local employment opportunities.[24]​ edge cities, in short, are appropriate for an economy characterized by a service-oriented market, as well as for supporting important manufacturing sectors.

Political relations

Political groups contribute to the creation of the edge city in a particular way. There is usually a development commission or similar organization that operates parallel to and interacts with local, county, and state government institutions. Some authors call these commissions a private “proto-Government” or “Shadow Government.” According to writers Phelps and Dear, "these shadow governments may tax, legislate, and police their communities, but they are rarely democratically accountable, respond primarily to wealth (as opposed to the number of voters), and are subject to few constitutional limitations," as "edge cities have received substantial investment."[25][26] In most cases, a "privatopia" forms within the residential areas of the edge city. where private housing developments are managed by communities of owners. In 1964 there were fewer than 500 communities, but "in 1992 there were 150,000 private communities governing some 32 million Americans."[26]

As in any city, edge cities go through phases of growth and redevelopment. Politics in edge cities is unique because it usually revolves around their development. Thus, it contributes to a "growth machine" that extends the urbanization of the country,[27]​ although they can overshadow smaller towns that are also going through similar phases of redevelopment. According to Phelps, "state interventions are important both conceptually and empirically because in their scope, timing, nature, and legacy they shape urban policy in different places and in the same place at different times." For example, Tysons underwent a development process due to the county government's aggressive recruitment of businesses with the promise of future growth. The arrival of more businesses caused the city to grow, which in turn caused the businesses to grow. A chain reaction was thus created that shaped the current Tysons. In this case, politics also played an important role, which can be traced to a special commission created at the request of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors "Board of Supervisors (United States)" that examined the county's fiscal capacity in relation to decreases in collective consumption expenditures.[27][28]​.

Spatially, edge cities primarily contain mid-rise office towers (along with some skyscrapers) surrounded by large above-ground parking lots and meticulously manicured lawns, almost reminiscent of Le Corbusier's designs.[10] Rather than having a traditional street grid, their road networks are hierarchical, consisting of winding tree-lined avenues (often without sidewalks) that lead to large arterials or highway ramps. However, edge cities have a job density similar to that of the secondary downtowns of cities such as Newark "Newark (New Jersey)") or Pasadena "Pasadena (California)"); In fact, Garreau wrote that the rise of edge cities demonstrates that "density is back."[11]​.

Garreau expone cómo se desarrollaron las edge cities en el contexto estadounidense. A partir de la década de 1950, las empresas tenían incentivos para abrir sucursales en los suburbios y, en muchos casos, abandonar completamente los downtowns tradicionales, debido al creciente uso del automóvil y al traslado de las clases medias y altas a los suburbios, lo que a su vez produjo frustración con la congesión del tráfico y la escasez de aparcamiento en los downtowns. El aumento de los valores del suelo en los downtown céntricos y el desarrollo de las telecomunicaciones también facilitaron esta tendencia.[12]​.

Aunque existen algunos ejemplos tempranos en la década de 1920, no fue hasta que en la década de 1950 se generalizó el uso del automóvil, tras cuatro décadas de crecimiento intenso y constante, cuando resultó posible que aparecieran edge cities a gran escala. Mientras prácticamente todos los distritos financieros o downtowns secundarios estadounidenses que se desarrollaron pensando en el transporte no motorizado o en el tranvía tienen una red viaria amigable para los peatones con calles relativamente estrechas, la mayoría de edge cities, en cambio, tienen una red viaria jerárquica basada en arterias urbanas hostiles para los peatones, lo que hace que sea difícil llegar a ellas y desplazarse a pie o en transporte público dentro de ellas.[12]​ No obstante, en algunos casos se ha añadido transporte público en décadas posteriores, como es el caso de la línea plateada "Línea Plata (Metro de Washington)") del Metro de Washington, que conecta el centro de Washington D. C. con las edge cities de Arlington y Tysons, o el de las edge cities planificadas por el Gobierno de Canary Wharf en Londres y La Défense en París, que incluyeron transporte público desde su concepción.[13]​.

La primera edge city fue el New Center de Detroit, construido en la década de 1920 unos cinco kilómetros al norte del centro de la ciudad como un nuevo downtown para Detroit.[14]​ El New Center y la sección conocida como Miracle Mile del Wilshire Boulevard de Los Ángeles están considerados como las primeras formas urbanas orientadas al automóvil.[15]​ Sin embargo, las dos fueron construidas con unos objetivos radicalmente diferentes: el New Center como un parque empresarial y la Miracle Mile como una avenida comercial. El ejemplo clásico de edge city que proporciona Garreau es el centro de las tecnologías de la información Tysons, al oeste de Washington D. C.[16]​.

Outside the United States

Garreau shows how edge cities have also developed in other countries, specifically citing Canada, Mexico, Australia and cities such as Paris, London, Karachi, Jakarta and Tianjin. In the cases of London and Paris, he observes that these edge cities were developed with public planning and integrated public transportation.[13]​.

Mobility

Some edge cities planned next to planned highway interchanges have had serious traffic problems if any of these highways are not built. In particular, Century City "Century City (Los Angeles)," a pioneering 1960s edge city built on a former 20th Century Fox location studio in West Los Angeles, was planned along with a long-term project for access via an urban rail system and the Beverly Hills Expressway. However, neither of these two projects came to fruition, causing massive traffic congestion on the streets connecting Century City to the existing highways, two miles away. More than half a century later, the expansion of the Los Angeles Metro's D Line will finally provide rail access, and the Century City/Constellation station is scheduled to open in 2025.

Sustainability

In 2003, Lang and LeFurgy argued that edge cities may prove to be just a phenomenon of the century due to their limitations. First, residents of the low-density residential areas surrounding them often fiercely resist their outward expansion (as has happened in Tysons and Century City "Century City (Los Angeles)"). On the other hand, as their internal street networks are severely limited in capacity, their densification is more difficult than in traditional financial districts and secondary downtowns. As a consequence, they considered that the construction of medium and high density housing on the outskirts of edge cities was "between difficult and impossible." Since most are built to the scale of the automobile, they maintained that "public transportation usually cannot serve them well." They considered that access and circulation on foot within an edge city was impractical, if not impossible, even if the homes were close by. For this reason, they considered the revitalization of edge cities as "the main urban renewal project of the century."[17]​.

Densification

Currently, many edge cities have plans for densification, often around a walkable downtown-style core and with improved accessibility by public transport and bicycle, in addition to the construction of denser housing in urban-style neighborhoods. For example, in Tysons, in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, the goal is for the city to become the central hub of Fairfax County.[18] To this end, "eight districts have been demarcated, four of which are centered around the new subway stations."[18] Plans continue to be developed to improve transportation and accessibility in the area. "The plan's objectives are for 75% of developments to be within half a mile of a metro station, in an urban center with 200,000 jobs and 100,000 residents."[18]​.

Outside North America

Despite the lessons from the American experience, in rapidly developing countries like China, India and the United Arab Emirates, edge cities are rapidly emerging as a new urban form as car ownership soars and marginal land is cleared for development. For example, on the outskirts of Bangalore, numerous mid-rise glass office towers are being built, surrounded by lush gardens and large parking lots where many foreign companies have set up shop. Dubai "Dubai (city)") provides another example.

Relationship with the metropolitan area

The emergence of edge cities has not been without consequences for the metropolitan areas they surround. The edge cities appear due to the decentralization of the population from the center of large cities, which has occurred since the 1960s. Socioeconomic changes in metropolitan areas have been attributed to their appearance and growth, such as the increase in land prices in times of wage stagnation, the location of industrial zones and the competition for work between the edge cities and the more central areas. There has been a significant debate among economists about whether "jobs follow people or people follow jobs,"[19] but in the context of the edge city phenomenon, workers have been attracted from financial districts in favor of the edge city economy. It has been shown that the promoters of edge cities strategically plan their expansion to move workers away from the densest cities and maximize profits from the economic and commercial activities of these areas.[20]​.

Edge cities contribute to urban development by creating new jobs by attracting workers from the metropolitan areas that surround them. As a consequence of the rise of edge cities, more shopping centers, hotels, apartments and office buildings have been built. Currently, there are more edge cities than traditional downtowns of the same size. Garreau states that one reason for the rise of edge cities is that "today, we have moved our means of creating wealth, the essence of urbanism - our jobs - to where most of us have lived and shopped for two generations."[4]​ Compared to urban centers, edge cities offer companies many advantages: cheaper land, security, efficient land communications, advanced technological facilities and a high quality of life for their workers and managers.[2]​.

Impact on the economy and industry

This concept has shown the impact that the national economy has on the edge city and its surroundings. Through Garreau, the term "edge city" has provided insight into the importance of corporate actors to the strength of urban and regional economies. Garreau observes that edge cities have a tendency to have a large service-oriented industry linked to the national economy. The edge city offers supplies to its surroundings in the form of commercial facilities and consumer services.[22]​ Progressively, as its population increases, different services begin to move to the edge city. Corporate offices occupy space in edge cities and provide connections to external locations if decisions are made from those locations.[23]​ Not only are there edge cities based on business, services and transportation, but innovation-driven edge cities generate additional metropolitan links.[24]​ Edge cities can create significant growth in retail, leisure and consumer service facilities, which in turn leads to an increase in local employment opportunities.[24]​ edge cities, in short, are appropriate for an economy characterized by a service-oriented market, as well as for supporting important manufacturing sectors.

Political relations

Political groups contribute to the creation of the edge city in a particular way. There is usually a development commission or similar organization that operates parallel to and interacts with local, county, and state government institutions. Some authors call these commissions a private “proto-Government” or “Shadow Government.” According to writers Phelps and Dear, "these shadow governments may tax, legislate, and police their communities, but they are rarely democratically accountable, respond primarily to wealth (as opposed to the number of voters), and are subject to few constitutional limitations," as "edge cities have received substantial investment."[25][26] In most cases, a "privatopia" forms within the residential areas of the edge city. where private housing developments are managed by communities of owners. In 1964 there were fewer than 500 communities, but "in 1992 there were 150,000 private communities governing some 32 million Americans."[26]

As in any city, edge cities go through phases of growth and redevelopment. Politics in edge cities is unique because it usually revolves around their development. Thus, it contributes to a "growth machine" that extends the urbanization of the country,[27]​ although they can overshadow smaller towns that are also going through similar phases of redevelopment. According to Phelps, "state interventions are important both conceptually and empirically because in their scope, timing, nature, and legacy they shape urban policy in different places and in the same place at different times." For example, Tysons underwent a development process due to the county government's aggressive recruitment of businesses with the promise of future growth. The arrival of more businesses caused the city to grow, which in turn caused the businesses to grow. A chain reaction was thus created that shaped the current Tysons. In this case, politics also played an important role, which can be traced to a special commission created at the request of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors "Board of Supervisors (United States)" that examined the county's fiscal capacity in relation to decreases in collective consumption expenditures.[27][28]​.